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Russians flee for Moscow amid Ukraine border attack: ‘it has to be stopped’

  • Thousands of residents are evacuating, with some asking Putin for help as pro-Kyiv forces press into Kursk region in a major offensive

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Russian Emergency Situations Ministry personnel help evacuees from the Kursk region, as they arrive at a railway station in Oryol on Friday. Photo: Russian Emergency Situations Ministry via AFP

At a railway station in central Moscow, small huddles of families, including children and the elderly, stepped off a train from the city of Kursk, some carrying possessions in shopping bags.

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The Ukrainian army has been pressing into the Kursk region since Tuesday, in what appears to be its most serious offensive on Russian soil since the conflict began in 2022.

“It’s terrible. They are bombing,” an elderly man at the station said when asked about the border region, declining to give his name.

Many of those arriving at Moscow’s Kievsky railway station were waiting for relatives to collect them.

An older woman who had travelled on a train with her teenage son sat on a bench on the platform, tearfully stroking her cat, Murka.

A photo released on Friday shows women and children being evacuated from the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk region. Photo: Government of Kursk region via AFP
A photo released on Friday shows women and children being evacuated from the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk region. Photo: Government of Kursk region via AFP

Authorities have organised additional trains out of the Kursk region to cope with the flow of evacuees, reported to number in the thousands.

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